Decolonizing 1968: Transnational Student Activism in Tunis, Paris, and Dakar

by Burleigh Hendrickson

Decolonizing 1968 explores how activists in 1968 transformed university campuses across Europe and North Africa into sites of contestation where students, administrators, and state officials collided over definitions of modernity and nationhood after empire. Burleigh Hendrickson details protesters' versions of events to counterbalance more visible narratives that emerged from state-controlled media centers and ultimately describes how the very education systems put in place to serve the French state during the colonial period ended up functioning as the crucible of postcolonial revolt. Hendrickson not only unearths complex connections among activists and their transnational networks across Tunis, Paris, and Dakar but also weaves together their overlapping stories and participation in France's May '68.

Using global protest to demonstrate the enduring links between France and its former colonies, Decolonizing 1968 traces the historical relationships between colonialism and 1968 activism, examining transnational networks that emerged and new human and immigrants' rights initiatives that directly followed. As a result, Hendrickson reveals that 1968 is not merely a flashpoint in the history of left-wing protest but a key turning point in the history of decolonization.

Thanks to generous funding from Penn State and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress[dot]cornell[dot]edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Genres: History

244 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 15, 2022

Reviews

[TaniaRina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scholarly work that’s non-scholar accessible

The author clearly explains how people with various mindsets interacted and clashed. I’d definitely state the description on Amazon is spot on:
“The very education systems put in place to serve the French state during the colonial period ended up functioning as the crucible of postcolonial revolt.”
“Using global protest to demonstrate the enduring links between France and its former colonies, ‘Decolonizing 1968’ traces the historical relationships between colonialism and 1968 activism”.

To be honest, I am totally ignorant of the situations mentioned in these three locations so I cannot say whether or not his information regarding those is correct.
Having said that, the comparisons to the non-existent ‘state of palestine’ over and over and over and over again were not only false, but they also help promote the exact misinformation that fuels terrorism against Israel. If the author wanted to cite locations other than the three titular ones, then he should have used ones that had comparable issues and also not limited his selection to only one. As to the latter, he could have mentioned that some of the protesters *thought* that they were influenced by
Israel was a nation prior to its three former occupations (Roman, Ottoman, & British) and that she was RE-formed as the Jewish nation at San Remo in 1921 [same conference at which a new nation (TransJordan) was formed for the Arabs in Israel]. She shed the snarky Roman nickname (palestine) and reclaimed her ancestral name at independence in 1948. Not Israel’s fault that Jordan and the other Arab & Muslim nations closed their borders to the Arabs who wanted to leave Israel. To quell any disagreements on that, just contrast it to what happened with India and Pakistan less than a year earlier. ‘Nuff said.

Except for the aforementioned blatantly incorrect information, I really did enjoy this book and felt that I learned from it. I will keep it for future reading when I have time to do some online research.